Can't buy a coffin without a body?

Factual Questions
1

In another thread, a link was shared with Q&A about the building of the Munster Koach and Drag-U-La. This caught my eye:

15.) What do you know about Barris obtaining the coffin to make the car? Where did you get them for the newer ones?
The first coffin was obtained from the prop shop and was first used in the movie “Some Like It Hot.” The next three - I get the coffins from Mexico as you can’t buy them in the States without a dead body.

What? You can buy them at Costco. Was it illegal to buy a coffin without a death certificate in the '60s? Or was it just a ‘rule’ by the funeral industry to protect their profits? Or was Dick Dean mistaken?

2

That’s not the case now in California but the laws may have been different in the Sixties. I suspect what he means is that funeral homes wouldn’t sell you one a la carte; you would have had to buy the whole funeral and mortician services. Easier and cheaper to drive down to TJ and pick one up.

3

I seem to remember Jessica Mitford exposed any number of restrictive practices:

4

Should also point out that even an honest merchant may have been reluctant to sell. Their business revolves around the solemnizing of the process around death and burial. Selling coffins to people who are going to use them for stupid irreverent stuff may have been offensive to some of these funeral homes.

Although, this being Hollywood you would think that money trumps everything.

5

The overriding motive behind the funeral industry’s refusal to sell coffins was the fear of consumers cutting out the middleman.

6

What’s the big deal? You can find a body anywhere.

7

Back in the late 1990s, Mrs. Nott worked as an accountant for a local casket factory. They’d happily sell a casket to anybody. In fact, they sold some with shelves inside, so the customer could use them for bookshelves until they needed them for caskets.

8

And most towns have nice and tidy storage places for used coffins.